So That's The End of That, Then

Another year, another pretty miserable Six Nations for Scotland. Our Celtic cousins over the sea celebrate their shiny new Grand Slam—created out of gritty Munster-like determination (and a missed penalty) rather than any sort of fantastic rugby—and those in Wales cry into their Brains after slumping to fourth in the table, despite being in with a shout at the end of a fantastic deciding match. France were their usual schizophrenic selves, Italy looks like it may be going backwards and England seems to be starting to develop a little unit cohesion and some decent backs, whilst maintaining that undisciplined streak that lets other teams back into matches.

And so it was for Scotland in the Calcutta Cup, where Paterson and Godman kept us just about within touching distance, and a little bit more vision/ruthlessness/Ugo Monye having one leg might have seen us snatch an unlikely victory. Once again, Al Strokosch put in a powerful performance, but it’s about time someone else stepped up to his intensity levels. Euan Murray gave England a tough time in the scrums, but was not totally dominant, even once Vickery went off. He started to show up loose again too, which is good. Mike Blair had probably his best game of the tournament, but that’s not saying much, and it's sad to say that may not be enough to put him on the plane to South Africa, where in the autumn he was a certainty. Thom Evans once again set a stadium alight with a try that almost was, but he has now become the Shane Williams of Scotland— marked heavily wherever he goes. World-class Phil Godman seems to have put the “who should play 10 for Scotland” debate to bed, but the Scottish attack is still not setting the heather on fire, let alone the sunny turf of Twickenham. Credit must also go to England, which finally looks to be adding the ruthlessness to their game which has been missing for a while. No sense in dwelling too much on the past, so here’s what I would like to see in the future, Six Nations-wise.

Let’s Have More of:

Scotland’s Defence, for the most part. In the first half against Ireland, much of the French game and all of the Italy game, the defence was solid and convincing. Al Strokosch may not put in the crowd-pleasing big hits that Jason White did, but his work rate is phenomenal— it’s the little hits, all the time, phase after phase, that help us. We turned over a lot of balls with Scott Gray at 7, too. Barclay is undoubtedly the future in the position, but Gray was probably the standout man in blue during the Calcutta Cup match and it’s good to have competition for places.

Scotland Scoring Tries. Well, for a while at least. It was good to see Simon Danielli coming on to some form after some pretty cruel luck in the past, and you fancy in the autumn there will be real competition for back three places from the Lamont boys, Evans boys, Malkovich, Mossy, etc. The A-Team tour to Romania in the summer should be interesting, too. Unlikely you’ll find it on TV, though.

Chris Cusiter. I hope he has a couple of blinders for Perpignan to round off the season, and I hope Geech is watching.

Euan Murray Destroying Opposition Scrums. Yeah, something to cheer about!

Andrew Cotter. Is he the new Bill McLaren? Maybe even some more of Lawrence Dallaglio, who was balanced and fair in his assessments. Rob Henderson, Andy Nicol and Philip Matthews were also pretty good. The rest, s